Pride and prejudice

The line between patriotism and bigotry

You would think that a chant as simple and traditionally patriotic as “U-S-A” could never be seen as a bad thing and certainly not something that could be seen as being racist and worthy of being banned from high school sporting events.

Yet that’s exactly what it became to a Michigan school district.

According to FOX 17 in west Michigan, the students of Forest Hills Central High were told that they can no longer chant “U-S-A” during the game as the motives behind students’ use of the chant have been called into question.

FLAG — The symbol of pride has been scrutinized. Photo credit: Michela Diddle

FLAG — The symbol of pride has been scrutinized. Photo credit: Michela Diddle

A primarily caucasian school, Forest Hills Central was rumored to be using the cheer as a means of racially-motivated bullying the players and fans of the opposing school, who were largely minorities.

In a more immediately obvious addition to the case, Forbes website pointed out that these same students have also brought banners and flags to the games — both of which have been linked to possible white supremacist sympathies.

Jim Haskins, the commissioner of the conference, took action immediately and limited the time window of acceptability for the chant to the time directly following the playing or singing of the Star Spangled Banner.

When speaking to FOX 17, Haskins made sure to make his intentions clear and deflected any potential criticism of his decision as being against American pride.

“It’s not unpatriotic,” Haskins said. “It’s just trying to keep everything squared away
with everybody.”

This surely is not the first time that something like this has happened, and it’s not even the first time I personally have seen it.

In my senior year of high school in Lodi, California, a basketball player of ours who was of Pakistani descent was continuously jeered at throughout one of our games, and the same “U-S-A” chant was directed towards him.

As one may expect, it grabbed headlines in our area. Our player simply wanted to move on and focus on the game, but he was understandably upset.

To see such a very similar act performed by some of my peers, quite frankly, sickens me.

When San Francisco 49ers backup quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand during the national anthem this past preseason the country took notice, and some of his fellow NFL players followed his example.

Their protest has continued and influenced similar actions from athletes at various levels.

The reactions, as one could expect, came from both sides of the issue.

Belmont University’s campus newspaper, The Belmont Vision, shared on its website a hateful message that was posted by a student on social media.

In his Snapchat story, freshman Justin Woodard posted a picture of a group of NFL players protesting police brutality during the national anthem and captioned it by stating that the players ought to be shot.

Needless to say, the student was swiftly expelled from the school and escorted off the campus of the Christian university, and I couldn’t be happier for the consequence.

Our once patriotic and positive moments seem to have been truly transformed into such deep negativity and brought about such hatred and controversy.

Our country’s values once stood for unity between differences, or at least that’s how I have always seen it.

Today’s social climate seems to have put that far behind us.

This rising turmoil and these hate-filled occurrences will never change anything for the better, and they turn any hope of positive change into yet another obstacle for our country to overcome.

Klinker is a feature writer.

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